Glitterbust – “The Highline” (Singles Going Steady)

Chris Ingalls: Kim Gordon’s latest project is pretty much what you’d expect from a Sonic Youth alum, all droning distortion and an exceptionally non-commercial approach. I like what they’re trying to do here, creating an atonal atmosphere that’s in no hurry to make any kind of concession to the verse/chorus/verse/chorus format. It’s refreshingly unstructured, and the naked, hyper-distorted arrangement suggest Neil Young’s Le Noise filtered through Lou Reed. As a single, it gets my vote. But a whole album of this would wear thin for me. [7/10]

Emmanuel Elone: “The Highline” starts and ends slow. The grunge guitar riff is pretty dark, full of minor-key chord progressions that are overflowing with teenage angst. However, though the riff itself is pretty tiresome, the vocals could cure insomnia. It’s full of lazy, low moans that carry no emotion, and sound as if the band isn’t even trying to make their song enjoyable. By the end of its five minute runtime, if “The Highline” didn’t become background noise, it either put me to sleep or was muted while I listened to more enjoyable grunge than this. Gitterbust don’t seem to know the difference between being moody and being lethargic, and their inability to differentiate the two lower the overall enjoyment of “The Highline”. [3/10]

Pryor Stroud: “The Highline” is a mesmeric, noise-rock fever dream that seems to continuously lose its way in a labyrinth of its own creation. The lead guitar track is a defiantly protean shape, crackling and bending and then drifting off, as if attempting to contour the edges of a subconscious that it’s afraid to explore. “The shadow / Behind the buildings,” Kim Gordon drones, and you can feel her eyes watching this shadow as it extends and accrues substantiality, becoming something distinctly more menacing than a lack of light. [7/10]

Chad Miller: The somewhat calm and woozy atmosphere does this track a lot of favors, especially when presented as contrast to somewhat harsher sounds. Unfortunately, the vocal melody just sounds like wisps of a full musical phrase. The guitar part was really pretty, but the fragmented vocals just didn’t seem to be able to take advantage of it. [6/10]

SCORE: 5.75